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The typewriter

The earliest typewriter patents may have been in 1714, when Queen Anne granted patent 385 to Henry Mill for 'an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters, singly or progressively one after the other, as in writing'

The typewriter we know was invented in 1867, when three Americans--Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samual W Soule from Milwaukee, Wis.--patented their first typewriter

The first commercially successful typewriter was made in 1873 by Remington and Sons, manufacturers of guns and sewing machines. It resembled a sewing machine and was the first to have the QWERTY keyboard, which placed the most common letters in the most difficult positions to keep the machine from jamming.

The first modern typewriter was the Underwood No 1 of 1895, the first in which the type was fully visible as it was being typed In 1901, Underwood introduced its legendary No 5 model, which was manufactured for more than 30 years

Mark Twain first wrote on a typewriter on Dec 9, 1874: 'I am trying to get the hang of this new-fangled writing-machine, but am not making a shining success of it However, this is the first attempt I ever have made, and yet I perceive that I shall soon easily acquire a fine facility in its use'

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